


Rip Current

by odoridango



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fireside Chats, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:37:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odoridango/pseuds/odoridango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean finally asks Eren about the outside world, and in the process, learns about a different kind of danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rip Current

**Author's Note:**

> For erejean week day 7: ocean.

The first time Jean understood how dangerous Eren could be, they were outside Wall Rose, in Wall Maria territory.

“Do you think the outside world will look like this?” Jean asked, poking at the low-burning campfire with a stick. They were on third watch, and it was a quiet night, save for the snores of the sleeping soldiers scattered all around them. The two of them sat on logs, across from one another, the fire in the middle. 

“…what do you care about the outside world?” asked Eren suspiciously.

“You’re always going on about getting there, so you must have some sort of idea or concept of what you think it should look like. We’re still technically in the walls and all, but all I’m seeing is flatland, grass, rocks, and forests here and there. What’s so good about the outside world?” Jean asked, throwing down the stick. “Also, I’m really bored.” 

He’d expected Eren to respond right away, to fire back as he always did, but Eren seemed to be thinking something, pursing his lips and tapping his fingers against his knees.

“If I tell you, you won’t tell anyone?” he asked, eyes intent. “Promise me.” 

Jean raised his eyebrows, unsure why Eren needed such secrecy. “…yeah. I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Promise,” Eren repeated emphatically, holding out his pinkie finger. 

“Is this really necessary?” Jean growled, swiping a hand through his hair and linking pinkies with Eren.

“I don’t want Armin to get in trouble,” Eren said quietly, and gave Jean’s hand a single, firm shake. 

“Armin? What does Armin have to do with it?” Jean asked. Curious despite himself, he moved to sit on Eren’s log. Wide eyes gave away Eren’s surprise, but he scooted over obligingly, tucking himself more securely into his green Scouting Legion cloak. Somehow, he seemed a little embarrassed at the direct attention.

“When we were little,” Eren began, and it was odd to hear his voice so low, so hushed and subdued, “After we’d been friends for a couple months, Armin brought me to his grandfather’s house and showed me his favorite books. I still don’t know where he got them, but they were contraband, written before the walls were built, and described the outside world.” 

Jean snorted. “It’s kind of weird, but somehow that doesn’t surprise me. He didn’t get caught did he?”

Eren shook his head, somewhat bitterly. “If he were caught, do you think he’d be here right now? No, somehow we managed to keep it to ourselves. 

“But in that book…there’s something called the ocean. It’s a body of water,” Eren said, and his voice rose in volume as he turned to look Jean in the eye, body flushed with enthusiasm, a subtle smile curling the edges of his lips and brightening grey eyes. “Like a puddle. Except, _huge,_ huge and wide, stretching farther than the eye can see,” and Eren flung out his arms, tipped his head back to look up breathlessly into the starry sky.

“Can you imagine it, Jean?” Eren asked, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Water, stretching all the way to the horizon, blue, just like the sky! And it’s supposed to get deep, enough that no light can reach the bottom, and all sorts of creatures are supposed to live in there. These little floaty clear blobs called jellyfish, these things called coral reefs that are supposed to be all colorful and support small animal systems all their own. Shit, Jean, can you imagine that?” 

Jean wasn’t sure what to say, because he couldn’t imagine it. He wondered if that book had pictures, if that was the reason why Eren had always been able to dream so large, so bright, in colors and hues that were too dazzling to ever be able to fit into the box of pastels sitting neglected in the bottom drawer of his desk at home, untouched for five years. But he closed his eyes and imagined, water, reflecting the sky, stretching out so far tjat he couldn’t see walls, he couldn’t see buildings or trees or people. Like standing at the edge of something cosmic, still and grand, and a whole other universe hiding underneath that glass surface, just waiting to be found.

“Yeah,” he whispered, opening his eyes to see Eren beaming at him, hands tight on his shoulders. “Yeah, I think I can.” And he could feel something rising in him as he gripped Eren’s hand at his shoulder, and Eren drifted even closer, like he had an intimate secret to tell. 

“There’s more…mountains that spew fire, molten earth, the book said! I can’t even imagine what molten earth looks like. Wet forests, where it rains all the time, lands that are just sand and heat, so hot you can just sit there and bake and die…and ice, giant blocks of ice that move everywhere and carve mountains and hills and canyons, and sometimes they’re even supposed to float on the _ocean_ …”

Eren’s voice was seduction, and Jean couldn’t tell if it was him or the slight smoke of the campfire and the ripped open sky above them, shining with stars and streaks of purples and blues, or the heat of Eren’s hands against his fingers, seeping through the layers of his uniform to touch bare skin beneath, that made him want to dream with Eren, that made him ache to be able to let himself imagine going so far, so beautiful. 

“That’s why you want to go to the outside world,” Jean said, quiet.

“That’s why I want to go to the outside world,” Eren said with his determined wolf-grin, all bared teeth and familiar fire. 

And Jean understood precisely why Armin’s book was contraband. Why Eren was hope, he who dreamed for the sake of dreaming, for the sake of having something to look forward to. Books, learning, expanding the mind, expanding courage—

“Jean, there’s so much more out there. This place we’re living in, this, this _slaughterhouse_ —“ 

—reaching, farther, for things that could not possibly hope to come true, for impossible things, for dreams and illusions and castles built with clouds and stars, spun with light and thunder, with the force and ferociousness of unfathomable forces, like monsters, like humans who made monsters—

“—we’re more than that. I can’t accept that. Don’t you see? We can’t stay like this. We’re so limited. Jean—“ 

And softly, gently, Jean covered Eren’s mouth with a trembling hand, sirens blaring danger, danger, and he wanted to hate him, wanted to bury those ideas in the ground and never let them resurrect, because hope was just a flipside to futility, to martyrdom. Eren’s dreams were beautiful, but maybe, they were the ones that were already burying him in the ground.


End file.
